


But Maybe Not Tonight

by buckysbears (DrZebra)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post MSF, jemma needs to stop putting the weight of the world on her shoulders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 23:49:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5605663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrZebra/pseuds/buckysbears
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"You're so small," he muttered, and she almost pinched him before he continued, "how do you have room for so much guilt?"  </i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Fitz and Jemma have a late night talk after the events with Hydra.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But Maybe Not Tonight

**Author's Note:**

> From the anon prompt: fitz talks to jemma about her being tortured in 3x09
> 
> Can be read as a follow-up to [Feather-Light](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5467586) or as a standalone

The knock on her door was so quiet that Jemma couldn't be sure she hadn't imagined it, as hard as she was straining to hear any noises beyond her dimly lit bedroom. She sat up as the silence stretched out, heart thudding hard against her rib cage for no good reason at all.

She was about to go check the hall when the door handle turned a fraction, paused, and then the door opened to reveal Fitz, still in his pajamas and hair tussled. His face was pinched, but widened into shock when he saw her sitting up in the bed, her desk lamp clicked on.

"I-I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to wake you, I just-"

"I was already up," she assured him, giving him a careful once-over as he fidgeted in the doorway, unsure whether to stay or go. Jemma shifted toward the edge of the bed with a small wince, patting the mattress beside her.

He looked back and forth down the hall before stepping into the room and shutting the door behind him. He sat facing away from her, shoulders tight.

She reached up to place a hand on his back, touch light over the trembling in his muscles. "What's wrong, Fitz?"

He shrugged, not answering, obviously still uncomfortable, and she worried at her bottom lip.

"Nightmares?"

A small nod.

"Me too, haven't been able to sleep. Oh, will you come here?"

She tugged at the material of his shirt and he finally scooted to lean against the backboard. He wasn't looking at her, but held his thumb nail firmly between his teeth, eyes glassy and red-rimmed. She sighed and laid her head on his shoulder, smiling just a little when he leaned back into her, even though it made her ribs twinge.

"What was it about?" She asked, voice barely above a whisper.

"You," he stated at the same volume, sounding choked, "I was running through the Hydra base trying to find you, because I could hear- I could hear you. Screaming. But I- I couldn't find you. And then I did, but I wasn't fast enough, and-" He cut himself off with a quiet gasp, and Jemma looked up to see tears running down his cheeks. He looked away, almost embarrassed, and replaced the nail with a knuckle instead, jaw clenching against it.

"Hey," Jemma soothed, taking his hand out of his mouth to hold it between the both of hers, "you weren't too late. You got me, I'm fine."

"Yes I was, and no you aren't," he replied gruffly, eyebrows drawn down in a way that made him look not quite angry, but something close. "They- They tortured you, Jemma."

"I know, I was there," she stated, unsure if she was trying for levity.

He didn't seem to take it that way, and she quickly raised a hand to wipe the wetness off his cheeks, wanting to take it back.

"I'm fine," she tried, but he merely shook his head.

"No, you're not. You-" He pushed out a sigh, eyes finding the ceiling. "I've never heard you scream like that before."

Oh. She was vaguely cognizant of the fact that she hadn't been far enough away from Fitz to block the sound, but had honestly had other things on her mind during and after that particular event. She'd been so preoccupied with getting him back, and trying to find a place to begin mourning Will, that she hadn't stopped to wonder if he'd been bad off even before he entered the portal.

"I'm so sorry, Fitz, I didn't think-"

"Jemma," he huffed a laugh, disbelieving written across his features. "You are not seriously apologizing to _me_ for having to listen to _you_ get tortured."

She bristled. "You still went through something hard, and I didn't even ask. It's just polite-"

"I'm trying- I wanted to say," he cut her off with a wave of his hand, eyes flitting over her face and further down toward her abdomen, "that it's okay for you to not be okay. I know you're not, but you act like you are—okay, just fine—even after all of this, and you don't have to. No one is going to hold that against you, least of all me, not now."

Jemma looked away, finding herself unable to stand his eyes roaming her face, the cut on her cheek. Something rolled in her stomach, and she could feel her muscles pulling as she shrugged, shoulder still pressed against his arm. “I really am fine, though.”

“You can’t be,” he argued, “No one could just be fine after that Jemma. Bobbi was trained for this and it still took her months—it’s only been a day, you can’t be alright-“

“I have to be, Fitz,” she snapped, hating herself when a tear dripped down her cheek. The force of the anger that suddenly filled her left her a little breathless. “I have to be okay, I have to be _just fine_ , all the time, and I have to keep going. Keep moving, even when I don’t want to or even when it hurts.”

“And if you’re not?” he challenged, but there was an ache behind his eyes, “If you’re not, what then?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted, “but I don’t want to find out. Nothing good, surely.”

“I think you need to find out. And it’s not gonna be good, or fun, or easy. But if you keep trying to hold this away from you it’s gonna- well it’s gonna come back to bite you in the arse.”

She couldn’t help her small chuckle, a little anger snuffing out in her chest, and she watched his lips pull up in a sad smile in her peripherals.

“You don’t have to talk to me, but talk to someone. It really does help.”

“Have you talked to anyone?” she asked, curious and already wanting to change the subject.

“Hunter, actually.”

Jemma gave him a look, one eyebrow raised.

“What? It did help, more than I thought it would. Didn’t fix anything but I feel more clearheaded now, during the day anyway,” he self-consciously rubbed down his hair, which was mussed from sleep, “What about talking to Bobbi?”

“I don’t think that’d be a good idea,” Jemma shook her head, “It might bring up memories. I mean, I know what I went through wasn’t anywhere near as bad-“

“Jemma,” he sighed, “stop trying to quantify your pain. Ward hurt Bobbi, and he hurt you. You don’t need to put numbers or levels to that. You don’t have to try and justify not talking about your own hurt because you think he hurt her worse. Listening to you get tortured … I was really scared, and really upset. And it’s okay that I was, even though you were probably more so. And it’s okay for me to admit that, and talk about it, even if you were worse off. We were both hurting, and we both deserve help.”

A wry smile twisted at Jemma’s lips. “Did you learn that from Lance?”

“Some of it,” he defended, “but am I wrong?”

“Not entirely,” she conceded, rubbing her fingers against each other, feeling vaguely nauseous, “I still don’t think I’d be comfortable talking to Bobbi, though. Not this soon.”

“Okay, that’s fine,” he nodded empathetically, seeming happy to be making some sort of progress, “What about May?”

“Oh, I couldn’t.” The dull ache of nausea contrasted with the sharp pinpricks of pain around her stomach and ribs. “Not after what I did.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know damned well what I mean, Fitz. With Dr. Garner.”

“No, I don’t know what you mean,” the furrowed brow was back, and he leaned forward slightly so he could see her face better, even as she tried to look away, “because all I heard is that you made the decision to save your own life, and I can’t see anything bad about that.”

“I made a selfish choice,” she argued, surprised by how close they were when she turned back to look at him. “It took such a toll on her to try and keep him safe, and now he’s out roaming the streets again. And how many more Inhumans are dead because of it? Because of me?”

“Because of him,” he corrected, and she shook her head, tears spilling down her cheeks against her will.

“No, Fitz, because of me. I let him out to save myself-“

“To _save_ yourself, Jemma. To save your own life-“

“And it was the wrong choice!” Her throat caught around the words, and she paused, feeling woozy and breathless. “It wasn’t worth it.”

Fitz looked taken aback, and his eyes had regained the glassy quality they’d had when he first arrived. “You can’t really think that, Jemma.”

“I do.”

He bit his bottom lip, grabbing at her hand and squeezing hard. “No one else does. Everyone thinks you made the right choice.”

“Then they’re being selfish too,” she muttered, something thick in her throat stopping the words from coming out any louder. “It’s one life against the dozens that he’s taken, and that he’ll keep taking. That’s selfish.”

“Then let us be selfish!” He didn’t seem to mean the almost-shout, flinching back from it as she did and lowering his voice. “Let us be selfish, then, if it means you staying alive. Don’t we deserve it? After everything, can’t we have just that?”

She glanced away from him, and he let out a bitter chuckle, nodding along to what she wasn’t saying.

“I suppose you don’t even know how, do you? Fine, pretend it was up for a vote and we all voted to let him out, because we would’ve. Does that make it any better?”

“Not really,” but there was a faint smile pulling at her lips.

“Listen,” he put on his best American accent, voice going higher and flat in a horrible imitation of May, “All in favor of letting out the big, scary monster to protect Jemma?” He let his voice back to normal, raising his hand with a small ‘aye’ and dropping it again. “See? We voted. Now you have nothing to feel bad for.”

She let out a little burst of laughter through her tears, resting her forehead against the jut of his shoulder. “I still have plenty to feel bad for, Fitz.”

He checked off an imaginary list in the air, “Well, that’s one down then. What else do we got?”

She laughed again, but didn’t respond, closing her eyes both in pain and in the pleasure of his heat pressing against her from calf to shoulder. When she finally looked back up he was inspecting her intensely, and she would have felt self-conscious if she wasn’t so tired.

“What?”

"You're so small," he muttered, and she almost pinched him before he continued, "how do you have room for so much guilt?"

She swallowed harshly, looking away. "I keep thinking I'm gonna burst," she admitted, "I feel so full with it I think I can't possibly have any more. And then I do something wrong, and I just expand. Like all my cells are made of it now, but there's too much and I'm tearing at the seams." She didn’t know where the words were coming from, only that they were suddenly pouring out of her, too fast to stop. “I feel so full of everything nowadays that I’m worried everyone else can see it too. That if I touch them it’ll get on them, all that pain, like a virus. I don’t know how to let it go without hurting anyone else. I don’t even know if I deserve to let it go, maybe it’s my purpose just to carry all of it. Just carry it all until I burst.”

Fitz dropped a hand onto her leg, stroking side to side with his thumb. “Maybe …” His throat worked around the words, and he had to swallow before any more would come out, voice hoarse. “Maybe you just let yourself burst. And you let it hurt, and you let it be messy. And then you let everyone else help clean it up.”

“I don’t think I could do that to all of you.”

“We want to, Jemma, we want to help. It’s hurting us more that you won’t let us.”

She blinked away a few tears, nodding. “I don’t know if I could manage it, even still.”

“You start by talking about it. Maybe just one thing, for now. Get one thing off your chest and feel a little better for it, and the load will be lighter when you’re ready to talk about the next one.”

“Just one?” She confirmed, and he nodded.

“Yeah, just one, if you want.”

Her brows furrowed, searching for something she could say, something she could shake loose from the massive ball of guilt and anxiety and mourning that always clouded her chest. “I was really scared,” she finally decided on, letting it go with a shaky sigh, “when they were torturing me. I didn’t want to be, I didn’t mean to. I tried to just think of you, and hope that you were safe, or to be strong like May or Bobbi. But I couldn’t, everything was just fear and pain. Afterwards I tried to act brave again but it felt like a lie.” She willed herself not to look away from him even as his face pinched in grief, as he carefully pulled it into a more neutral expression. “I was so relieved when it finally stopped, I didn’t even care why.”

He almost faltered, trying to find a response. “There’s no shame in that, Jemma.”

“Do you … want to see?” She didn’t know why she offered, but she suddenly had an almost overwhelming need for him to look, like maybe it would explain why she’d felt so out of control—why she’d failed him, even if it didn’t excuse it.

After a few moments he nodded and shifted back, and she carefully straightened and pulled up the hem of her shirt, ignoring his intake of breath. She watched his face as his eyes swept over her torso, beginning to water again. She started to drop her hands when his own darted out, not touching, but stopping the descent. He swallowed thickly and opened and closed his mouth a few times before he spoke.

“Pliers?”

“From the telekinetic, yes.”

“And W-W-“

“Ward?”

He nodded.

“No, he just hit me.”

He huffed out something that sounded like the word ‘just’ and shook his head, his hand coming up to pinch the bridge of his nose, eyes clenching shut. “Ribs?”

“Three fractured, one bruised, none broken.”

“Did Bobbi-“

“She was the one who checked me over, yes. I got a bit of a fussing from her, too.” She dropped her shirt, shivering slightly. “And I was supposed to talk to May about it, but … she got called away by Coulson and I haven’t seen her since.”

He dropped his hand and tilted his head to blink up at the ceiling, tears swimming in his eyes. Jemma wrung her hands, worried she’d made the wrong move in showing him. He finally sighed, and reached out to thread his fingers with her own.

“I’m so sorry, Jemma,” he murmured, squeezing gently, “I’m so, so sorry you had to go through that.”

She wanted to say _it’s okay_ , but held her tongue.

“You never should’ve had to … you’ve gone through so much and it just-“ he laughed to himself, “it just _sucks_. It’s bloody awful, and I’m sorry. You’ve had such a hard time of things.”

She didn’t know what to say, so she looked down. Oddly, this was when her tears decided to stop, so she wiped the last of them off her cheeks, feeling heavy but almost refreshed.

“And you- you know you’re my favorite person, right? Like out of all seven billion some humans and not-so-humans on this planet, I think you’re the best.”

Jemma chuckled, fighting hard to keep her smile away, a small weight lifting from her chest, “That seems statistically improbable.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, eyes still wet, “and really lucky, on my end.” He grinned as she squeezed his hand, but it suddenly dropped off his face. “Does it hurt for you to sit up like that? With your ribs?”

“A little,” she admitted, grimacing as the pain was called to attention. ”I’m actually supposed to sleep sitting up, I’m just so tired and the backboard isn’t too comfortable.”

She watched the gears turn in his head for a moment before he nodded, pressing gently against her lower back. “Scoot forward.”

She did and he propped the pillow up before leaning back against it, legs on either side of her and arms open. He wiggled his fingers. “Okay, now you don’t have to lean against the backboard.”

“Oh, Fitz,” she murmured, hating how weepy she’d felt since he came in, “Now you won’t be able to sleep.”

He smiled at her, a soft, shy thing. “I think I’ll sleep just fine. Come here.”

With a sigh, she sunk gratefully against him, and he wrapped his arms very loosely around her sides, taking her hands.

“Not so bad, yeah?”

“Not bad at all.”

"Maybe ... we can keep talking in the morning?"

She nodded and turned her head to lay against his chest, feeling the steady thrumming of his heartbeat beneath her ear, and let it lull her to sleep.

\--

She woke with a gasp a few hours later, feeling small waves of pain jumping through her torso. Fitz was shaking beneath her, muscles moving in clenches and jitters. His forehead rested against her head, breath coming out in short pants to ghost against the skin of her neck.

Finding his fingers still gripped in her hands, she squeezed them tightly, whispering his name, trying to wake him. She called louder and he jerked awake, stilling instantly beneath her, eyes wide and unfocused and aimed at the corners of the room that weren’t lit by her dim lamp. She rubbed her thumb against the side of his hand, straining her neck to try and look at him.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he breathed, forcibly relaxing his muscles and letting his head drop to her shoulder, “Yeah I’m okay. You?”

“I’m good.” It wasn’t a lie. Despite her injuries, it was the most okay she’d felt in a while.

“Good.” He was quiet for long enough that she wondered if he’d fallen back asleep, hunched over her like he was. She could feel a wet spot begin to grow on her shirt, but didn’t mention it. “Are we gonna be okay?” he asked.

She didn’t know what he meant—okay in mind and body, okay moving forward in SHIELD, okay in terms of their relationship. Whatever he meant, her answer was the same.

“Eventually,” she told him, surprised to find she actually believed it, “Eventually we’ll find that.”

“Okay.” He readjusted so he was in a more comfortable position against her shoulder and closed his eyes. She could feel him breathing gently against her, felt his smile when she let her head lean against his for a moment.

Her mind raced, and she felt like she should kiss him, or tell him she loved him. But she let herself sink into the feeling of his chest against her back, of his arms supporting her sides, of his cheek pillowed on her shoulder. Just breathed in time with him, in and out, and let her eyes close. Her mind quieted. There would be other nights.


End file.
